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Hollinger Corp. 
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Compliments of 
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[Paper Read before the St. Louis Teachers^ Associatio7i,) 

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By Louis F. Sold an. 



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The Wester 



JANUARY, 187 O. 



LANDMARKS IN EDUCATION. 



THE variety of the world that immediately siirroiiuds us, 
appeals to our senses in each of its objects. The multi- 
tude and diversity of impressions which we receive eucum- 
l>ers our judgment ; we see the detail, but we are apt to lose 
sight of what is great. If we step close to the canvas, which 
"Time's whizzing loom prepares,'' in order to examine more 
closely part of the ever-moving dissolving views which life 
throws upon it; we may see the shadows face to face, but 
our eye fails to grasp at the same time the ends of the can- 
Aas. If we wish to see the whole scene we must stand back. 
The true magnitude of things can be appreciated only from 
a distance. There hills and lloAvers disappear, and the Al- 
pine peak alone, strikes the eye. 

So in history, it is difticult to^^distinguish.tlie great from the 
small in events and men that immediately surround us ; it is 
ditiicult to write a just history of one's own time. But if we 
look at distant times, whatever was small and iusigniticant, 
has passed out of sight, and the extreme^heights of humanity 
stand in lonely grandeur. 

Great men are the landmarks, the monuments which great 
times leave as a token that they [existed. Time is eternal, 
but ages are short-lived: great men live longer than their 
AOL. II. NO. 1 — 1. 



The Western. 

times. Great men are the brazen tablets on wbich a time in- 
scribes a record of wliat it was, and accomplished, and then 
])asse8 away into silent eternity. Ages vanish, and are for- 
gotten if they find not a voice strong enough to speak to the 
generations of following epc-chs, through the din and roar of 
tleetiug centuries. 

In Education as well as in nature, we are apt to ignore 
what is great and small, important or less important, if we 
live exclusively in what is near and immediate. Pedantry 
is the result of looking closely at the detail, without con- 
necting it with great ininciples. 

To discern what is great in education, we mast not only 
know its details, but must be able to view it from a distance 
that gives independence and impartiality to our judgment. 
For this end we must study not only the history of education 
in its great teachers, but also ascertain how it reflects itself 
in the minds of great men who are the exponents of their 
times. 

While Goethe was not a teacher, his educational views are 
well worthy of attention, as those of the representative man 
of his time. 

Goethe's early educational views are the expression of a cen- 
tury that was the most fertile in educational theory; of a 
time that was frantic with educational excitement ; the time 
of Rousseau. In Rousseau the educational movement that 
had begun with the Reformation, and had been continued by 
Montaigne and Locke found a vehement and thrilling utterance. 
What Rousseau felt and Goethe understood was but a se- 
quel to the educational movement of the time of the Reform- 
ation, when the Middle ages rose from their knees to begin 
the work of the new^day. 

The time of the Reformation is important, not only on ac- 
count of the religious movement, as the name would lead us 



Landmi(r]{S in Education, 3 

to suppose, but because it was the geueral awakeniug of the 
spirit of European humanity, that freed itself from the fet- 
ters of a barbarous and dark age. 

The free institutions of the Saxon races, which were so 
thoroughly intermingled with their character, had been trod- 
den down by the iron heel of the Gorman conquerors. Pos- 
session had passed out of the hands of freeholders, to those 
of the feudal lords. Xo longer the freeman, and not yet 
the king ruled the land, but the nobility. But the rule of the 
many was already declining. 

As the i)ower of the nobles was diminishing, as chivalry 
consumed itself in endless civil feuds, the power of the king- 
increased, and promised to rise to the absolute sway which it 
had after the lapse of two centuries, when wielded by the 
crafty Louis XIV. While the general drift of the time ap- 
proached despotism, we see the first rise of an undercurrent, 
running in the direction of modern freedom and culture. 

In the Xorth as well as in the South, the spirit of the Eu- 
ropean races unfolded the most energetic activity, that con- 
trasted strangely with the intellectual stupor of a thousand 
preceding years. In the South it took the form of imagina- 
tion and adventurous discovery ; in the Xorth it stepped 
forth as thought and invention. The southern nations ex- 
tended their power ; the northern nations deepened theirs. In 
Italy, Dante, Raphael and M. Angelo had shed on their land 
a lustre, which is more permanent than the light of the sun. 
The Portuguese and Spaniards carried their arms over the 
unknown main to unknown lands. The Xorth invented the 
printing press whose work holds a nation together more 
firmly than does the sword. 

With the invention of i^rinting begins modern education. 
It made the means of culture accessible to all, and hence arose 
the idea of general education, that is, of the wish to be in- 



4 The Wetitern. 

Htructed iu the use of all these means. Ttie translation of the 
Bible which took place in this century made it the object of 
religious zeal to spread education, that enabled all to read the 
sacred books. The invention of gunpowder freed the serf 
from the power of the lord. 

In the brutal strife of the age, mind interfered by inventing' 
the means, arming- the weak hand with a power that made it 
strong. In England after the war of the Eoses had broken 
the strength of the Xorman feudal power, the house of Tudor 
rested itself on the supiiort of the citizens against the no- 
bility of England and as a last step in this historical develop- 
ment, the citizen became strong enough to defy and defeat 
both king' and nobles. 

The very basis of modern institutions is respect for each 
individual. The basis of former institutions was respect for 
a few individuals. When the citizen began to assert himself, 
he unconsciously asserted the rights of an individuality, 
whose value was enhanced and drawn into self-consciousness 
i)y the beginning of edncation. No great age is without great 
teachers, nor is the time of the Eeforraation lacking in this 
respect. Mind finds itself again, and believes iu its inherent 
ability to recover itself by education. While during" the long- 
array of centuries immediately preceding-, the history of edu- 
cation is almost a blank, there arises with this time a series 
of teachers and educational writers who prepare the way for 
the coming- schools, by solving- some i)roblems and foreshad- 
owing others. 

Schools for the rich, for the scholar, the priest, the noble 
had existed before. Common Schools arose at this time. 
Their origin was due to the religious movement. Their aim 
. was to teach to read the Bible and catechism ; it must be 
borne in mind that this is true of all the Common Schools; it 
is true of the schools which Luther called into life, as well as 



Landmarks in Education. 5 

of the schools which Massachusetts founded and detiued by 
a law which sets forth as the aim of instruction, the teach- 
ing of the reading- of the Bible. 

Of the educational landmarks that point the way from the 
Reformation to Goethe's times, three names deserve mention ; 
Montaigne, Locke and Rousseau. In each of them we see the 
transition to modern education; in none of them do we see 
modern education entire. 

On the background of the dark ages they shine in dazzling 
splendor, which, however, fades when we substitute the back- 
ground of modern times. 

In each of the three writers the creed of modern times 
tiuds expression, namely the creed ; that the individual has 
absolute value. In each of them we find golden maxims as 
to how to educate one individual; the question, how to edu- 
cate all individuals lies still beyond their vision. 

The most perfect education they find in the education of 
each child by its own tutor. How infinitely superior school 
education is to this had not yet been discovered. The educa- 
tion by the tutor, which we are wont to consider an anachron- 
ism that makes the pupil a hermit, was the ideal of Locke and 
of Rousseau. 

Montaigne, the most brilliant writer of early French litera- 
ture lived during the latter half of the 16th century. A bril- 
liant scholar himself, he turned his sharp pen against the cus- 
tomary mode of classical study. Mankind had studied Latin 
and Greek for a few thousand years, and becoming young, 
again, revolted against the tiresome accustomed lore. 

Montaigne is the French Bacon. Theirs was a kind of re- 
bellion against the master of all that know, Aristotle. Inde- 
pendence of authority, be it Aristotle's, or of tradition in gen- 
eral, freedom of investigation, the study of nature, were the 
watchwords. Montaigne, however, did not neglect the all im- 



6 The Western. 

portaut culture of the ethical, while he coiucides with Bacon 
in his misappreciation of traditional knowledge. 

Montaigne's hrilliaut scholarly acquirements are nothing to 
him; nothing seems to be certain except knowledge wrench- 
ed directly from nature and the mind ; he frequently winds up 
his i)rofound essays on Church, State and School, with the 
contemptuous question : ^^Qiie sa/s-je" — What do I know ? 

A few of his principles will show his leading views, and the 
place he occuj)ies in the historical process of education. 

"In consequence of our methods of instruction," says Mon- 
taigne, "teacher and pupil may gain more learning, but they 
do not become any better fitted for life. We ought not to ask 
who has been taught more, but who has been taught better. 

We study to fill the memorj^ and let intellect and heart re- 
main empty. We are well able to say, "That's what Cicero 
says." " That is Plato's opinion" — but what do we say ? what 
is our opinion? 

" The other a parrot can do as well as we. 

" What good can it do to fill our intellectual stomachs with 
food, if we do not digest and assimilate it ? We rely so much 
on others, that we lose our own power by inactivity. If I 
wish to arm myself against the fear of death, I appeal to Sen- 
eca ; if I need solace for myself and others, I get it from Cicero. 
I should have found it in myself if I had been taught to do it. 
I cannot bear this beggarly existence; we may become 
learned by the learning of others ; we become wise only by 
our own wisdom. A lady told me that whoever wanted to 
absorb so much mind of others would have to compress and 
narrow his own mind — which of course is a wrong view of the 
matter." And in another place : " The mistake in our educa- 
tion lies in the fact that we lay too much stress on intellectual, 
and underrate ethical culture. We attach too much impor- 
tance to memory and neglect what is useful. 



Landmarl~s in Education. 

" The tutor must hold his pupil responsible not only for 
1he words of the lesson, but also for meaning and content. 
He must judge of the benefits which a pupil derives from in- 
struction, not by the evidence of the pupil's memory, but by 
his life. The pupil must review and consider the information 
presented to him in a thousand ways and must aj)ply it before 
the teacher can tell whether he grasped it." 

In regard to the order in which instruction is to be given 
Montaigne says : 

" The first instruction given to a child must aim at governing 
his ethical and moral nature ; he must be taught to know 
himself well, to live well and to die well. 

" The scholar is not expected so much to recite his lesson as 
to show practically that he has mastered it. 

" Do not drill on words ; if your jjupil knows the thing, he 
will lind the words to express it ; he must speak in a natural 
way, not like a book. We cannot borrow sinews and power 
as we can a cloak or garment. 

" The first object of instruction must be the mother-tongue. 

" We must not educate merely a soul, not merely a body, but 
a human being. Do not tear one thing into two. 

" The soul will succumb, if it is not assisted by a strong- 
body." 

While Montaigne is the principal figure in the history of edu- 
cation of the 16th, another thinker and another nation steps 
into the foreground in the 17th century. Locke was destined 
to give expression to the educational view that was the neces- 
sary sequence of Lord Bacon's reformatory efforts, which I 
have mentioned before. In Locke the reaction against author- 
ity which found utterance through Montaigne has advanced 
another step. While Montaigne objected to the mode of study- 
ing books and warned against neglecting the body altogether, 

ocke the scientist and philosopher dwelt on the physical side 



The Western. 

of education with the greatest emphasis, and we hud in hini> 
the transition to Rousseau, the educator by nature |)fir excel- 
lence. 

We might characterize the three writers by saying that the 
watchword of Montaigne was ; Mind and Nature, of Locke :. 
Nature and Mind, of Rousseau ; Nature and again Nature. 

Locke's necessary educational tendency is apparent from 
his philosophical stand-point. .Vll knowledge is dependent 
on experience. Experience originates in the fact that the 
senses transmit to the intellect the impression of external ob- 
jects. On sensation and reflection all knowledge rests. 

From this it almost becomes possible to construct a priori^ 
Locke's educational doctrines. Nature as the basis of all 
things, of intellect itself, is to be considered in the first i:)lace.. 

His views were developed in "Some Thoughts Concerning 
Education," and, as we may suppose, no small part of this is 
devoted to physical culture. In his attention to educa- 
tion in infancy, and the fact that he recommends the use of 
toys for the j)urpose of giving instruction, I find the first his- 
torical beginning of the ideas of the Kindergarten and Froe- 
bel's system in modern times. 

Locke, as well as Rousseau, describes in his educatioual 
work, how one individual is to be educated ; in our times this 
is no longer the question as we must ask how can a class be 
taught best? The first thing the educator must do is to 
watch the individuality of his pupil, according to which the 
child must be treated and instructed. 

This can be done by observing the child in play, because' 
there his individuality will unfold itself. Education must 
always be connected with the natural gifts of the pupil, The 
highest object of education is : a healthy mind in a healthy 
body. Hence the body must be made strong. 

How to do this Locke describes in the most explicit way.. 



Landmarls in Education. 9' 

His work is a perfect liygieue of education. Home education 
he thinks preferable to school education, because in schools 
good morals are sacriliced for the sake of acquirements. Edu- 
cation out-side of the house, makes the boy quicker and more 
adroit in his dealings with others; besides there is some 
value in emulation. But <iuickness and adroitness not uu- 
frequeutly degenerate into roughness and impudence. 

Moral education must be taken care of above all, for which 
purpose self-control is of the highest importance. Commence- 
early to counteract moral faults. Eepresent lying to children 
as something revolting, so contradictory to noble character 
that no one who has self-respect can bear to be accused of 
lying. If the child is caught in a lie the first time, he ought 
not to be reprimanded as we should do with another mistake, 
but we should show our astonishment, as if this were an as- 
tounding thing. If it happens again, he must receive a severe 
reprimand, and all the persons with whom he comes into con- 
tact must show the greatest dissatisfaction. If it occurs again, 
recourse must be had to the rod. 

Among the most important means of moral education he 
mentions praise and blame. No motives will touch tbe soul 
deeper than honor and disgrace. To inspire children with 
keen sensitiveness for their good reputation is the great secret 
of education. Make the child as susceptible as possible, to 
praise and blame. On this basis principles of morals and 
religion can be fostered. « 

The praise which children receive they must receive in 
presence of others, for then it is double reward. 

But their mistakes and faults ought not to be made public, 
for this creates moral obtuseness. Punish without i)as8ion. 
Corporal punishment must be resorted to only in case of 
obstinacy and resistance. Keason with the ( hild l)y examples. 

Knowledge is the most unimportant factor in education.. 



10 The Western. 

whereas M^e are apt to consider it the most important, or the 
only object of education. Reading, writing" and arithmetic 
are necessary, hut they are not the principal things. It would 
be foolish not to value a virtuous or wise man higher than a 
learned man. INIake children love the teacher and the study. 
Do not assign the study as a task. Even play would become 
obnoxious to the boy if he were compelled to play. Make 
children like the work and if i^ossible, make them work only 
if they are disposed to work. 

As soon as the boy is able to speak, he must learn to read ; 
he must learn it by toys, \>j a geometrical body with twenty- 
five surfaces, one for each letter. Children gain their first 
ideas not by words but by things and the representations of 
things. From what is known proceed to what is connected 
with this knowledge, but is not known. 

In the course of study which Locke suggests the natural 
sciences and things that are of direct use in^life predominate. 
The principle of utility prevails. Of what is not useful, of 
arti, i^oetry and music, the great philosopher speaks with the 
contempt of a barbarian. Rather a shoemaker than a poet is 
about the gist of his opinion. 

Montaigne is the rei)resentative educator of the 16th, Locke 
of the 17th, Rousseau of the 18th century. In Rousseau the 
antithesis to classical | learning becomes complete. What 
Montaigne wishes to modify, Locke to diminish, he rejects al- 
together. Emile, Rousseau'^ imaginary pupil, must not know 
what a book is when he is twelve years of age. Long before 
Rousseau sprang his educational work "Emile" upon the as- 
tounded world, he had won his first laurels by writing an essay 
that received the prize of the Academy of Dijon. The essay 
was an attempt to show that progress in science and art has 
not contributed to improve morality. It is characteristic that 
some writers assert that Rousseau had first written the essay 



Landmarli's in Education. 11 

to prove the salutary intiueiice of science on morality Avheu 
Diderot advised him to turn it the other way as the sensation 
would be greater. Rousseau's Emile was the great event of 
the last century i)revious to the French Revolution. Its bold- 
ness in thought and language, startled the whole world. 
Kant, the sage of Ktenigsberg, perhaps for the first time forgot 
the walk which he had been in the habit of taking at a certain 
hour every day of his life, when he was under the fascination 
of the work. 

Rousseau undertakes to show how he would have an imagin- 
ary pupil, Emile, educated from infancy to manhood and with 
all the shortcomings of Rousseau's life, with all the teeming 
contradictions of the work, with the preposterousness of its 
general drift, with all its senseless paradoxes, it remains in 
its particulars a treasure-house of educational gems. Emile 
has a tutor who remains with him until he attains the age of 
manhood. Emile is not taught by books. Before he is fifteen 
the tutor will not attempt to teach him to read. Up to that 
time Emile's physical nature, his senses, his character, will 
and intellect are trained by the educator's conversation and 
example. No other book but the world, no other instruction 
but facts 5 the pupil must not know things because he has 
been told about them, but because he understands them. He 
must invent science. 

A few of Rousseau's principles will show the position he 
holds in education and at the same time give an illustration 
of the paradoxical way of writing which he enjoys, and to 
which his success is to a small extent due, as such paradoxes 
never fail to enlist the attention of the reader. 

Emile opens with Rousseau's educational creed : "All things 
are good when they leave the hands of the Creator : all things 
degenerate under the hands of man. 

"Educate the child into humanity, and not for any special 
position or calling. 



12 The Western. 

" The first tears of the chihl are requests, ignore them aud 
they will become commands. 

"All wickedness is the result of weakness ; make the child 
strong'. One who is all-powerfal could not be wicked. 

"It is a mistake to teach children to speak very early — because 
this is the reason why they learn to speak less early and less 
well. The baneful politeness which we possess, to appear 
satisfied with words which we do not understand, begins earlier 
than we usually think. The child will listen to the flow of 
Avords of his teacher as he used to listen to talk of his nurse. 
Let the vocabulary of children be small and not contain more 
words than ideas. 

" There is nothing more silly than children with Avhom you 
have reasoned too much. If children understood reasons there 
would be no necessity for educating them. You might as well 
suppose that a child is five feet high as to attribute judgment 
to him. The rein which leads the child must be iron necessity, 
not human authority. 

" In education do the opposite of what is conventional and 
traditional, and you will do the right thing. 

" The tutor is to be blamed for all the falsehoods of children. 
Why do they allow children to promise things, why do they 
ask questions when the child has done wrong ? We, whose 
sole purpose is to lead our pupils by instruction to exercise 
their powers, do not ask them for the truth, because we are 
afraid they might distort it; nor do we allow them to give a 
promise, because they might be tempted not to fulfill it. 

"The only moral law for the child is : Do not wrong anybody. 

" Teach your pupil what immediately surrounds him instead 
of allowing his mind to wander continually in other times, in 
other climates to the end of the earth. 

"No jealousy, no emulation, not even in running a race. I 
had a hundred times rather see that the child does not learn 



LandmarliS in Edncniion. 13 

auything', than tliat it sliould acquire knowUHlgo driven by 
^mulatioii or jealousy/' 

The result which Kousseau api)reheiids from tins sort of 
odueatiou is expressed in the foUowiug- : 

"When Emile is twelve years old, his bearing and mauuer will 
£'xpress assurance and confidence. He is candid and unre- 
strained, but not overbearing and vain. His language is plain, 
and he will not talk unnecessarily. His ideas are limited, 
but definite. He knows nothing by rote, but he knows a 
good deal from experience. If he can not read very well in 
our books, he can read so much better in the book of nature. 
His mind is not on his tongue, but in his head. He speaks 
but one language, but he understands what he says. If he 
can talk less well than others, he can aet better. Neither 
■example nor authority will influence him much, he acts as he 
thinks best. In short, the teacher cannot make a show of 
him, as is the favorite custom of most teachers. ' My pupil is 
not rich enough to make a shoAv of intellectual treasures : he 
"cannot show anything but himself.' '' 

Eoussean's solution of the educational problem contradicts 
and hence cancels itself. The reformer of the education of 
the world confesses himself incajjable of applying his prin- 
-ciples practically. 

His imaginary pupil Emilc he educates witli the highest 
means which his subtile thoughts can find — his own children 
he sends to the foundling asylum. He teaches return to 
nature and kee[)s his pupil under the most unnatural tutelage 
np to his marriage. He educates Emile according to what he 
thinks nature, and then his pen forsakes Emile in the ship- 
wreck of life and conscience. He represents that all is good 
as it comes from the hands of nature, but instead of allowing 
Emile to grow up like liobinson Crusoe, he places him under 
what he calls the degenerating hands of man. He asserts the 



14 The Western. 

right of individuality, but immediately forgets that the indi- 
viduality of his tutor is sunk in the attempt to create another. 
Two individualities are needed in this process to create one. 
One can well understand Voltaire's sharp satire in his letter 
to Rousseau. Referring to the recommended " return to na- 
ture," he said, "After I read your book, I felt moved to creep 
upon all fours and to eat grass." 

Nevertheless his book touched the heart of his time; his 
watchword: "Men are created equal," l)ecame the watchword 
of his age and found its bloody application in the French Revo- 
lution. His theories spread over Europe like wild fire, pro- 
ducing the wildest educational excitement. The world be- 
lieved that the educational ijhilosopher's stone had been 
found. Educational mountebanks harangued the public and 
exhorted it to furnish the money for the founding of schools 
that were to carry the new theory into practice. More than 
Montaigne's and Locke's ideas was Rousseau's system carried 
into practice, not in France, but in Germany, where it gave 
rise to the so-called philanthropine under Basedow ; the odd- 
est of all educators. Nor did Rousseau's marvellous influ- 
ence die away soon, as Pestalozzi gave lasting life and a solid 
basis to the philosopher's wild speculation. All the writers 
of last century are more or less under the influence of Rous- 
seau and we can hardly point out any prominent author of 
this i)eriod who does not in some way or other touch educa- 
tional problems, Goethe as well as the rest. 

We may well call Goethe the representative man of his 
time, because he belonged to it and not only to his nation, as 
was painfully felt by his German contemporaries who saw with 
horror how little Goethe was moved by national sympathies. 
Goethe manifested unconsciously in his actions that he con- 
sidered himself belonging to the world as much as to his 
country. The quiet clearness of his mind was not disturbed 



LandmarJcs in Education . 15 

by the tidal wave of Eousseau's manifesto, nor by his inter- 
course Avith enthusiastic Basedow,''jWhom Goethe good-hu- 
moredly describes in his autobiography. Goethe's universal- 
ity of mind could not remain satisfied with the one-sided 
fervor of his time. In educational matters as well as in oth- 
ers his genius led him away from the trodden i)ath. His 
views, if not of practical importance, have at least the value 
which genius and originality produce. His j)erfect individu- 
ality could not endure the fragmentary culture which natu- 
ralism tended to give. He who had tasted the full sweetness 
of Greek lore, into whose ears Homer and Sophocles had 
whispered their charms, could not be guilty of the barbarism 
that discarded the wisdom of the forefathers to look for sta- 
bility and truth in the lihantasmagoria of nature. In Goethe 
the highest type of antiquity the most advanced speculation 
of modern times seem linked together. His mind could at 
the same time create dramas that place themselves near the 
Greek masterpieces and discover the first facts of a theory 
which Darwin, acknowledging the merits of his poetic prede- 
cessor, presented to oar days. 

As Goethe's life is divided by the French Eevolution into 
two almost equal periods, we can recognize two different pe- 
riods in his educational views. At first the individual side 
of education appears to Goethe the most prominent. What- 
ever man becomes, he must develop himself into by his own 
power. By error and earnest endeavor he must rise to high- 
est culture, to harmony with himself. Goethe's second pe- 
riod bears the powerful impress of modern views : no longer 
education of the individual by the individual, but education 
by society and in society. Society must take charge of the 
harmonious development of the general faculties of man, 
while to the individual is left the working out of his special 
Gifts. While this external change in Goethe's views was con- 



IG The Western. 

ditioned by the advancing spirit of the time, they remained 
iinohanged in their main principle. In the life of the organic 
world Goethe distinguished two tendencies, one, the arbitrary 
drift of individual character, the other the submission to im- 
mutable law. So in man he distinguishes the fate that is 
iborn with us, in the shape of natural defects or talents and 
•in opposition to this the vicissitudes of life that tend to en- 
-croacii upon the natural character without being able to de- 
stroy it. It is always doubtful whether fate will allow man 
to attain the ideal which is born with him in his tempera- 
ment and capabilities. Hence education must take the i^lace 
of chance and fate and lead man to fulfill his destiny, which is 
the full development of his powers according to his innate 
ideal. This view i^ervades the whole of Goethe's educational 
remarks which we find distributed over many of his works, 
and from it numerous principles follow as natural results. 
Education, says Goethe, must bring out what is in the mind, 
and not educate things into it. All education must lead to 
action. An acted error is better than an idle thought, be- 
cause the former leads to truth. Educate children to serve, 
as obedience alone makes social, religious and moral harmony 
possible. The negative element must be altogether discarded 
in education. 

Goethe had a very firm conviction of the correctness of the 
latter principle, and believed consistently in all its conse- 
quences. Hence he was opposed in education to the classifi- 
<'ation in natural science, to the anatomical and analytic 
methods. 

He did not fail to see that both analysis and synthesis are the 
necessary functions of the human mind, but synthesis, after 
all, he holds to be the proper method in education. In Wil- 
helm Meister he goes as far as to i>ropose a discontinuance 
of the analytical process of dissection in medical schools. 



Lfuuhjiarls in Education. 17 

Instead of dostroyiiig the dead bodies by analyzing them into 
l)aits, he suggests that young physicians be taught instead to 
imitate the parts of the body iu colored wax. " You will soon 
find," says one of Goethe's charactets, " that creating teaches 
more than destroying, uniting more than separating, to ani- 
mate what seems without life more than to liill again what is 
dead." 

The conversational method seemed to Goethe the true 
mode of instruction. In his Elective Afiliuities he makes the 
teacher express this opinion : 

" Perhaps we ought to make a secret of the tricks of our 
own handicraft. Take any subject, a substance, an idea, 
whatever you like; keep fast hold of it; make yourself thor- 
oughly acquainted with it in all its parts, and then it will be 
easy for you, iu conversation, to find out, with a mass of chil- 
dren, how much about it has already developed itself in them ; 
what requires to be stimulated, what to be directly communi- 
cated. The answers to your questions may be as unsatisfac- 
tory as they will, they may wander wide of the mark ; if you 
only take care that your counter-question shall draw their 
thoughts and senses inwards again ; if you do not allow your- 
self to be driven from your own position — the children will at 
last reflect, comprehend, learn only what the teacher desires 
them to learn, and the subject will be presented to them in 
the light in which he wishes them to see it. The greatest 
mistake which he can make is to allow himself to be run 
away with from the subject; not to know how to Ivoop ftist to 
the point with which he is engaged. 

"The right method of teaching is the reverse, I see, of what 
we must do in life. In society we must keep the attention 
long upon nothing, and iu instruction the first commandment 
is to permit no dissipation of it. 

" Variety, without dissipation, were the best motto for both 



18 The Western. 

teaching and life, if this desirable equipoise were easy to be 
preserved. Men should wear a uniform from their childhood 
upwards. They have to accustom themselves to work to- 
gether; to lose themselves among their equals; to obey in 
masses, and to work on a large scale. Evei-y kind of uniform, 
moreover, generates a military habit of thought, and a smart, 
straightforward carriage. All boys are born soldiers, what- 
ever you do with them. You have only to watch them at 
their mock tights and games, their storming ]5arties and scal- 
ing parties. 

" Women should go about in every sort of variety of dress ; 
each following her own style and her own likings, that each 
may learn to feel what sits well ujion her and becomes her. 
And for a more weighty reason as well — because it is appoint- 
ed for them to stand alone all their lives, and work alone." 

This 7th chapter, second part, of the Elective AfUnities, 
contains among others the following educational suggestions : 

"Fathers are usually poor educators of their sous; because 
there remains always some despotic element in their relation. 
Mothers, however, are the best educators of their daughters. 
Nobody can overcome the influence of tirst training. Examin- 
ations are to test whether ability has grown into skill." 

Goethe did not ignore the moral side of education, and his 
suggestions in this direction are full of the deepest meaning. 

Let the youths grow in undisturbed freedom ; do not break 
their self-contidence by perpetual scolding and reproof and 
tolerate allowable peculiarities. Give systematic exercise to 
the power of self-control. Do not forbid — but order ; do not 
prevent — but encourage. Fear is the worst means of educa- 
tion. Do not eradicate faults by force, but substitute what is 
good in their place. Restless, hasteless, sociable activity is 
the basis of i^hysical, intellectual and moral health. This 
activity must be in connection with the future calling. Be- 
ware of a talent which you cannot perfect. 



Landmarks in Education. 19 

Out of many I have selected a few of Goethe's sayings on 
the subject of education; we shall find that the ijulsatiou of 
genius beats in all of them. Goethe's principle is that of our 
days : Educate the child into its perfect humanity, by school 
and life in the society of his equals. If Goethe is to be the 
representative of our time for generations to come, he is not 
an unfit expounder of the educational thoughts that move the 
modern world. 

But the landmark which our age will leave behind, is not 
to be found in any great teacher, not in some writing educa- 
tional demigod like Kousseau, but is found in the structure 
of common schools reared by a free commonwealth that offer 
means of highest culture to a whole nation. 

L. r. SOLDAN. 



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